Reproduction regression article...a cautionary tale

[BlacknBlue in Red NC]

Reproduction Regression by Carole Joffee, TomPaine.com

http://www.alternet.org/rights/31199/

The procedure is still legal. So why are dangerous illegal abortions on the rise?

"Most commonly, they ingest a whole bottle of quinine pills, with castor oil…we try to get them to the ER before their cardiac rhythm is interrupted…Sometimes they douche with very caustic products like bleach. We had a patient, a teen, who burned herself so badly with bleach that we couldn't even examine her, her vaginal tissue was so painful…."


"Our local hospital tells me they see 12-20 patients per year, who have already self-induced or had illegal abortions. Some make it, some don't. They are underage or poor women mostly, and a few daughters of pro-life families…"

<snip>
If you assume the quotes above come from a veteran of the abortion rights movement, talking about the "bad old days" before Roe v. Wade, when desperate women suffered death and injuries because abortion was illegal, you'd be partly right. The speaker is a longtime worker in reproductive health, whose involvement with abortion started before Roe. But the situations she describes are occurring now.

Jen (not her real name) is administrator of a women's health clinic in the South that provides abortions. She has noted with alarm the recent rise in illegal abortion in her community. For some of the women she sees -- after their initial attempts at abortion fail -- whether Roe v. Wade is technically still the law of the land is beside the point. The combination of the procedure's cost, the numerous regulations that her state imposes and the stigma surrounding abortion is leading a growing number of women to choose self-abortion or an untrained practitioner over legal abortion. Finding accurate data about the number of cases is almost impossible.

However, Jen's abortion-providing colleagues in other parts of the country, who communicate their experiences through a listserv, share her observation of a recent perceptible rise in illegal abortion in their clinics as well. Indeed, in another eerie echo from the pre-Roe era, the increase in illegal abortion in Jen's area is so significant that a doctor from the hospital mentioned above contacted her. He asked for her help in setting up a special ward for the treatment of illegal abortions when Roe is overturned, because he knows the caseload will mushroom then. "He didn't say 'if' -- he said 'when,'" Jen said. "Chills ran down my spine."

<snip>
The number of illegal abortions in the United States -- and attendant injuries and deaths -- currently is nowhere near where it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Most unwanted teengage pregnancies obviously do not have as their outcome a life sentence in prison. Most public officials do not have to undergo humiliating questioning about past abortions in order to get a desired promotion. Rather, these incidents are cautionary tales. They are harbingers of what the American reproductive landscape could quite quickly become -- unless Americans demand a return to common sense and repudiate the madness that a powerful minority seeks to impose on us.

Carole Joffe is professor of sociology at the University of California-Davis, and a senior fellow at the Longview Institute.

[Greyhound]

1. K&R, Should be on the front page.

The sheeple just refuse to look around, I'm glad I don't have kids.

[fasttense]

2. God help us all. I've already told my daughter that

I would help her get a safe abortion, if she ever needed it. We can pay to go to another country. I don't want her inadvertently killing herself.

But what will all those girls do who do not have understanding or semi-well-to-do mothers? I remember the horror stories when abortion was illegal. The thousands of women and girls who died or were permanently disabled year after year after year. It was horrible.

My friend's sister was so torn up after a back alley abortion, she couldn't pee for six months (she was 13 at the time and her parents got her medical attention after she passed out on the kitchen floor) and she could never have children. It will be that way again.

Women and girls will be passing out trying to hide illegal and deadly abortions. They will be maimed and deceived by criminals. They will find a way to get an abortion, safe or not. They have been doing it since before Christ. When will these wacko christians learn to let women make their own decisions? Why do they have control every aspect of our lives?

God help us all.

[DELUSIONAL]

3. Making abortion illegal will NOT STOP abortion

Just like making alcohol illegal will not stop drinking -- o.k. there is a very big difference between abortion and drinking -- but in both cases the government was trying to play parent and dictate "correct" behavior.

This is an issue of privacy and an issue of control.

It is interesting that NSA spying -- of domestic communication is happening at the same time that the same idiots are trying to ban all abortion. Both are privacy issues -- how much should the government be allowed to monitor and dictate its citizens? This is also gaining private information in order to blackmail people into submission.

Many of us who remember the pre Roe v Wade days also remember that women were either forced to have unwanted children or they turned to abortion.

I've talked to doctors who have seen the effects of laws banning abortion - they have seen the horrific consequences on women.

Women will pay a heavy price in this war -- and women are always the victims in war.

[Arkansas Granny]

6. I grew up in the pre Roe v Wade days and it was common

knowledge that the "abortion provider" in our rural neighborhood was a woman who lived in a shack (possibly with a dirt floor, I just can't remember), had no medical experience and was considered to be of below average intelligence. There will be a return to this if those who want to ban abortion have their way. But they will insist that they are saving lives and remain blissfully ignorant of the lives that have been lost or permanently damaged because of their narrow-minded belief that they are destined to be the voice of America's conscience.

[donsu]

4. kicking for women's rights

nt

[MountainLaurel]

5. Was talking last night about this

With my husband -- how for all practical purposes, abortion rights no longer exist for the majority of women in the U.S: Between doctors who don't receive training in terminations or are too scared of being shot or bombed in front of their kids to perform them, the 24-hour rules that prohibit poor women and those who must travel long distances (which, since the vast majority of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider, includes most American women) from accessing abortion, parental notification and consent laws that require a pregnant teenager to put their health and safety and risk in some cases by forcing them to tell a parent of their pregnancy, the prohibitions against Medicare and military insurance paying for terminations, and the exponential increase in religious-affiliated hospitals buying out other facilities, where women may not get an abortion or sterilization even if their life is hanging by a thread.

And then there are those who are in a world of trauma already, such as my friend's 12-year-old foster sister whom she came home to find hemorrhaging on the bathroom floor. The girl was pregnant with her own father's child, and no one in the foster system had realized she was pregnant.

I'm horrified to read this, but I cannot say that I'm particularly surprised.

[Bridget Burke]

7. But--losing Roe V Wade would only be "inconvenient".....

For women in some states.

I objected to this statement in an earlier thread & was called "hysterical."

[MountainLaurel]

8. That's the standard response

For times when women here at DU have some objection to something.

[donsu]

10. pay no mind, misogynists use 'hysterical' as a poke-you tool

nt

[CTyankee]

12. I was on that thread!

I could not believe that posters actually said things like "transient inconvenience." I had a long back and forth with that individual. I also saw the "hysterical" reference. God, how sexist is that??

Do you get the feeling that some DUers here are women haters? I don't like to think that, but I wonder sometimes when I read their posts.

[MountainLaurel]

14. Definitely yes

On your question. "Progressives" are just as likely to be hateful misogynists as the next person, for the most part: Think of the treatment of women active in the anti-war movement during Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement, and within political parties, etc.

[Mabus]

9. This also highlights the need for sexual education in schools

Education coupled with proper medical accessibility is the key. A lot of these kids still don't think they can get pregnant the first time. They also need to understand there are alternatives and they don't need to try handle unexpected pregnancies by themselves.

This is just horrifying. The emotional, mental and physical scars that these kids (and adults) endure is so unnecessary.

[Horse with no Name]

11. You also have to understand that part of this economic

There is a large population of women that cannot afford the procedure.
They find themselves in a desperate situation and desperate people do desperate things.
It seems that in the 21st century, we could do better than this.

[politicat]

13. A first trimester abortion costs about $500 in this area - with no

anesthesia. (About half the time the local novacaine doesn't work, but that's another issue.) How many teenagers can raise that much money on the sly? For that matter, how easy is it for most women living from paycheck to paycheck to do the same?

A second trimester abortion costs up to $1000, and an early third trimester (rare, but sometimes necessary when the fetus has died or is very badly damaged) costs around the same as Labor and Delivery ($20,000.) Insurance only rarely covers any of these (I'm lucky that I'm on an insurance plan that does cover 70% of the costs if I need one.) Medicaid, medicare, and military insurance don't cover them.

Most organizations that subsidize abortions for poor women have at least 3 applicants for each fund they have.

We don't have waiting periods here, but it takes two appointments - a preliminary exam and then the actual procedure. There are 6 clinics in the state - all but one on the eastern side of the state and all in metropolitan areas. Half the state does not live within 3 driving hours of a clinic. How many teenagers can get to a town 300 miles away on a school day without telling their parents? For a woman with a small child and a job, it's equally impossible.

There's no such thing as abortion on demand. But it's what we need.

[donsu]

15. kick

nt